


missed a trick

by intimatopia



Category: SK8 the Infinity (Anime)
Genre: (He Gets One), Epiphanies, First Kiss, Hasegawa Langa is Bad at Feelings, Hurt/Comfort, Kyan Reki Needs a Hug, M/M, Spoilers up to episode 8
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-28
Updated: 2021-02-28
Packaged: 2021-03-12 16:41:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,419
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29762559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/intimatopia/pseuds/intimatopia
Summary: Langa rounds a turn, and thinks—for the first time since he’s embarked on this thrilling technicolor daydream of a sports career—why?
Relationships: Hasegawa Langa/Kyan Reki
Comments: 10
Kudos: 306





	missed a trick

**Author's Note:**

> i watched ep 8, had a crisis about my writing, and then wrote this in an hour and a half. thanks to summer for the encouragement and for reading this over! title from [this song](https://open.spotify.com/track/0X9YmbFHb2sPmml6J7DMK0?si=1d2ca48483eb4ba3).
> 
> i know canon would never give me langa having this realization, so i wanted to do it myself :3 enjoy!

Langa rounds a turn, and thinks—for the first time since he’s embarked on this thrilling technicolor daydream of a sports career— _why?_

 _Why?_ Joe’s catching up, he has to go faster—he lost speed on that turn and he _knows_ he could copy Joe’s trick if he just had an evening to figure it out but he doesn’t _have_ an evening and anyway some of his best work has been on a racetrack— _why?_ he has no time to consider that right now—

There’s a thrum in his blood like the air before a lightning strike. 

Langa’s not actually _thinking._ Being on a skateboard—or a snowboard—leaves no time for thought; words and self-reflection fall by the wayside as he picks up speed. It’s all flashes—image, sensation, the ghost of sound. Reki’s thrilled whoop when Langa landed a jump—his bruised knuckles bumping into Langa’s chest—his hair, red like the setting sun and oh, some part of Langa’s wanted to put his fingers in it and tug it _down_ ever since he saw Reki but that’s not relevant right now, _focus—_

_Why?_

He’s not thinking, but that word _rings._ He applies a burst of speed, catches up to Joe, but the glance Joe darts at him reflects what Langa already knows—his heart isn’t in this.

 _Adam’s going to be so disappointed,_ he thinks, the first clear sentence he’s had in his head in what feels like a year but has probably only been minutes— 

And on the heels of that thought is a rage so vast it eclipses every other sensation.

Who _cares_ about Adam? That creepy, _weird,_ fucking—Langa has no words, _hates_ him, god, he’s not given to hatred and he’s even less given to anger but he’s so livid right now he could spit fire—Adam hurt Reki, broke him and ground him down like he wasn’t—like he’s not _still_ the best person Langa’s ever met in his life. He knows so many amazing people, starting with his dad and his mom and all his new friends and none of them could hold a candle to Reki—who stood up for a kid that thought him unworthy and set aside his enmity with a rival that had broken his arm and tried and tried and _tried_ like the world was worth trying for—

Maybe it’s the adrenaline, but the clarity feels like looking out through a new lens.

Here is what Langa knows:

  1. He’s been empty—ever since his father died, and perhaps before—he’s been empty and then he wasn’t for a while but he’s empty now _again_.
  2. _Reki_ was the light he was missing. Reki is a fireball, bright and reckless and willing to burn himself out to keep everyone else warm—and Langa wants to cup his hands over that flame and guard him from the world. He wants to _hoard,_ though that would be selfish. Failing that, he wants to hold.
  3. He’s an idiot for thinking Adam was ever, _ever_ even a little bit important. That melodramatic, lecherous shitstain doesn’t deserve Langa’s attention, and _certainly_ not if that means diverting it from Reki.
  4. He likes skateboarding, and he likes winning. Adam is not necessary to either of those things—Reki is. 
  5. Reki is _necessary._



Langa drifts to a stop. His throat is dry and his head feels like a bell, and if he lingers too long Adam will probably arrive in a stupid helicopter to deliver some painfully dramatic and weirdly sexual speech. 

Unless his geography is wildly off, he’s about two hundred meters from the passage that goes through the mine’s tunnels. He turns around and skates back, going fast but without tricks. There’s no point to being good if Reki’s eyes aren’t on him. Langa doesn’t know what it says about him that he’s so easily hooked on the idea of an audience clapping for everything he does.

Maybe not any audience. There’s knots of people hanging out on the sidelines of the track, and they stare at him as he skates past. They look astounded that anyone would want to go back that way—Langa honestly does not give a shit. Giving a shit would only weigh him down.

Besides, they’re not who he performs for. They’ve only ever seen him at his best. How many times has Reki seen him fall?

He thinks about the bruises on Reki’s face that day, when he said _we’re not a good match anymore._ Bull-fucking-shit, for one—but those bruises. Langa hates himself for overlooking that, for ignoring the shaky quality to Reki’s voice and the clear exhaustion etched into his body in favor of his words.

They echo in his head now. Reki takes promises seriously, and Langa broke an important one. He hopes this isn’t past the point of fixing.

Adam does not accost him on the way back. When he crosses the starting line, the only people standing there are Chinen, that guy in the hoodie—who the fuck knows who he is, Langa does not care—and Cherry.

“Is Joe okay?” Cherry asks, eyebrows knitting in at the sight of Langa—and it occurs to him just now that the only reason he’d return is if something life threatening had happened.

Later he’ll think: _couldn’t Cherry have asked Carla?_ and _I would’ve skated faster if something was wrong!_ and _do skateboarders even give a shit about safety?_

Right now he just nods and looks around, because he _knows_ Reki is somewhere here.

He doesn’t have to look for long. Reki flings himself out of a shadow and skids to a stop in front of Langa. “What happened?” he demands.

Langa drinks in the sight of him—defensive but still worried about _Langa,_ who could ever deserve someone like Reki Kyan—and then wraps his arms around Reki and holds on. He’s wanted to do this since—weeks, maybe—but now that he’s here all he can think is _Reki, Reki, Reki,_ a litany like a prayer.

Reki takes a moment to respond, his fingers hooking uncertainly in the back of Langa’s sweaty shirt. He probably stinks right now, gross. He’s not pulling away.

“Langa?” Reki whispers.

 _I’m sorry,_ Langa wants to say, and _Fuck Adam._ What comes out of his dry mouth is, “I’m Adam.”

Reki heaves a sigh. “Did you knock your head on something?” he asks, which might be the meanest thing Reki’s ever said in his life. Langa’s painfully thrilled about seeing this side of him—so thrilled he forgets how stupid he had to be to unlock it. 

(That night—that wasn’t Reki being mean. That was pain, and a broken promise, and Langa has so much to make up for.)

“No,” Langa says belatedly. “I’m sorry. And _fuck_ Adam.”

He looks up a little, and the guy in the hoodie is watching them. He’s nondescript, but Langa doesn’t trust him, so he grabs Reki’s hand and his skateboard in his other and walks them away from everyone else. 

“Where are you going?” Chinen calls.

“To talk,” Langa calls back. “Tell Joe I said congratulations.”

“You’re something else,” Reki mutters.

Langa bumps their shoulders together. Since they’re still holding hands, this just serves to press them up against each other even more. They walk all the way out to the tiny all-night convenience store that’ll soon have a hungry crowd descend on it like vultures. The purple-haired girl behind the counter takes Langa’s money suspiciously. Reki pulled his hand back while Langa was picking up his soda from the top shelf, and Langa’s not convinced that’s alright. He’s not in the mood to outstare a clerk, but he gives it his best shot.

His dad once told him he has a stare like a cow chewing cud. Langa had elected to take it as a compliment.

There’s a patch of pavement behind the store, weeds encroaching on concrete where the light stops a few feet away. Langa pops the cap on his soda and leans against the wall. He’s so thirsty he finishes it within seconds. Reki fiddles with his can.

He’s still quiet, waiting for Langa to elaborate. Except, now that they’re here, Langa doesn’t know how to convey the magnitude of his discovery.

It all feels so trite when Reki’s miserable in front of him. 

The silence echoes. It’s not fully quiet—Reki gulps down his entire drink and tosses the can into the fields with a dull sound. A car speeds by occasionally, there are crickets and wind in the grass. Langa feels small and heavy and far away from anybody, even with Reki so close.

He remembers, suddenly, lying in the snow. He’d thought it so much fun, a snow angel but deep enough that the ground was a couple inches over his face. A hollow made just for his tiny body. He remembers his father’s terrified anger when he found Langa lying there, _you could die like that! You could freeze to death! Never do that again, Langa, promise me…_

Getting lost inside his head is just as bad, if not worse, and he never promised anyone he wouldn’t do that.

 _Not very good at keeping promises, are you?_ some snide voice in his head says.

 _It doesn’t snow in Japan,_ Langa thinks defensively. But that’s a terrible excuse, and he _knows_ it, and he has to start somewhere—so he says, “You taught me to skate.”

“No,” Reki says. “You already knew how.”

“I knew how to snowboard,” Langa says, in the interest of absolute precision. “It’s not the same. You know—you _saw_ how bad I was at it.”

“Yeah,” Reki murmurs, subdued. “And I saw you get _better._ ”

“Yeah—exactly. You _saw_ it. _You_ saw it.”

Reki gives him a wary look. In the dark, Langa can’t tell if he’s untrusting or just confused. “What are you saying?”

“I’m saying,” Langa starts, and then pauses and rewinds through his epiphanies. “All those people at S—they see me skateboard, and they think I’m good at it. But they didn’t see me fall. And they didn’t keep trying to pick me up.”

“Langa—”

“And,” he’s hitting a stride on this now, he can get it out in one go, “and you’re—you’re so much more important than Adam, or whoever—I don’t care anymore. About him. I don’t know if I ever did. I just wanted to win, and I thought that if I won you wouldn’t—it wouldn’t matter that he hurt you, because I defeated him _for_ you. But fuck that. He’s nothing. And I wouldn’t even be _here_ without you. I wouldn’t _want_ to skate without you.”

“Langa,” Reki repeats, sounding desperate. He steps closer, and the headlights from a car briefly set alight the tear tracks on his face. Langa’s stomach drops. “Langa, _stop._ I can’t keep up with you.”

He raises his hands and drops them against Langa’s chest, freezing him in place.

“I can’t _believe_ you,” Reki mumbles wetly. “You’re not—I was _worried_ about you, you _asshole!_ I thought he’d break your bones and you’d never be able to _move_ again! Langa—if you ever scare me like that again, I’ll—”

“What,” Langa says breathlessly. He likes Reki angry. He wishes he didn’t have to skate past one of the most dangerous people in the city to get Reki so worked up. “You’ll what?”

Reki groans. “Probably nothing,” he mutters. Langa raises a hand and wraps it around Reki’s forearm. “I told myself I wouldn’t come to S, but I couldn’t stay away, in the end—I thought if something happened to you, and the last thing we did was fight—”

Langa kisses him.

It’s so _easy,_ it’s like uncovering a new move. Like wheels made of lightning. Like knowing he’ll accelerate with the landing, like knowing where the ground is in his _heart._ He tightens his grip on Reki’s forearm and yanks him near, mashing their lips together.

Reki’s lips are chapped. He groans when Langa kisses him like it hurts. Langa forces himself to slow down, kissing deeper and harder. He can’t get enough of this. When Reki kisses back, it’s like a fever spreading—Reki’s arm around him, his palm pressed against Langa’s racing heart—Langa’s other hand tugging at Reki’s hair like he’s wanted to since forever, Reki’s groan dying in Langa’s mouth—a beautiful, _endless_ fever. 

It’s the opposite of a snow angel grave. Langa’s _never_ felt this alive, even when skating.

He barely manages to pull away long enough to catch his breath. Reki’s panting as hard, his eyes wide and shocked. “Oh,” he whispers.

 _I never want to hurt you again,_ Langa thinks. _I’m sorry I ever did._

His heart slows down under Reki’s fingers. “You know,” Reki says at last. “I never thought you’d say sorry first.”

Langa shakes his head and waits. Reki’s heat and presence is a gift, their closeness is a gift—Langa can wait a long time.

“I came to tell you something, too,” Reki says finally. “I love skating, but it’s not—I’m never going to be as good as you, or Chinen, or Shadow. I’m never going to be in the same _class_ as you.”

An angry denial blooms in Langa’s throat, but he swallows it back. He doesn’t agree, but the last thing he wants to do is condescend to Reki. 

“But,” Reki continues. “I like making skateboards. And it’s not—maybe it’s not _as_ good as being on the racetrack myself, but it’s—it kind of is, in a way? Knowing that, when you skate and win—it’s ‘cause of something _I_ made, for you…you know?”

Langa honestly, doesn’t know. He _can’t_ know. He’s never been good at making things, and he’s never tried. He’s always admired Reki’s skill, the dexterity of his hands and the breadth of his knowledge—he never quite thought about what it _meant,_ but now that he does he likes it. He likes the idea of winning on Reki’s gift for _making_ where Langa’s only gift is going so fast he steamrolls anything in his way. 

“Okay,” Langa says finally. “If you want that—whatever you want.” Reki gives him a stunned look. “You’re my best friend,” Langa adds earnestly. “I want you to be happy.”

Reki’s look goes from stunned to incredulous. “ _Best friend?_ ” he yells. “You _kissed me!_ ”

“Oh,” Langa realizes. He did that, didn’t he. His lips are still a little sore. Reki’s mouth is red. “Yeah, uh…boyfriend?”

**Author's Note:**

> find me on [tumblr](https://ciaran.tumblr.com/) and [twitter](https://twitter.com/swornrival). comments are loved!


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